


Well Said, Hermione

by mightbewriting



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Co-workers, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, POV Draco Malfoy, POV First Person, Romance, Smut, Voice Kink, also, and draco completely fails at that, inappropriate use of shakespeare quotes, it was supposed to be casual, throat kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 14:41:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30006456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbewriting/pseuds/mightbewriting
Summary: “Again,” she breathes. It’s barely a word, barely a whisper, barely a command. But it’s one I’m happy to follow.She doesn’t want to hear a stranger reciting Shakespeare’s Sonnets. She wants verses—biting, passionate ones—and she wants them fromme.It’s laughable when I think about it. But I’m not laughing, and neither is she. It’s hard to, when her eyes darken and her breath catches and lust cracks like a lightning strike through every nerve in my body.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 127
Kudos: 575





	Well Said, Hermione

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Smozark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smozark/gifts).



_Now: Saturday_

She kisses like she’s studied it, and she probably has. Nothing would surprise me less than to know that Hermione Granger has honed and perfected her kissing technique through vigorous consultation with literature. Such a thing sounds like a wildly unattractive trait to find in one’s kissing partner.

I am decidedly not unattracted to her.

I am very attracted, in fact.

Extremely attracted. Frustratingly, inexplicably, annoyingly attracted, if the strain below my belt is any indication. It’s a new development I’d like to say I resisted. But I didn’t, not really. I’m glad for that now because her warm lips and soft breasts are pressed up against me and it’s marvelous.

I dig my fingers into her backside and pull her closer.

She grinds her hips down on me, knees on either side of my thighs as we abandon all sense of decorum in this dark, delightful little jazz-slash-poetry-slash-cocktail lounge.

Somewhere on a stage, far from our secluded little booth in the back corner, the entertainment for the evening reads another sonnet.

I’d thought Shakespeare Sonnet Saturdays at a trendy little spot (in Muggle London, no less!) would be the perfect way to warm her up (we’d agreed upon as much). And things _are_ feeling rather warm, now that she has her tongue in my mouth and her cunt in very distracting proximity to my cock.

I’d thought this was exactly what she wanted.

It was _close_ to what she wanted. But not quite right.

She’s rough with her nails, dragging them over my chest, catching on buttons and plackets and muscles underneath without care or consideration for the quality of cotton or tailoring involved in my sartorial choices.

I’m rough right back. I find I rather enjoy pulling her hair. She has so much of it. It’s so easy to slip a hand up her spine, sink my fingers into a chaotic quagmire of curls, find the base of her skull, and _grip._

She hisses into my mouth, but her eyes flutter and her hands flex against my shoulders.

We hover, chest to chest, as my fist in her hair forces her chin up, exposing the length of her neck to me.

I devour her, jazz soundtrack supplanted by her panted breathing in my periphery as I lick and suck and bite my way from the side of her neck, just beneath her ear, all the way down to the base of her throat.

“Again,” she breathes. It’s barely a word, barely a whisper, barely a command. But it’s one I’m happy to follow.

She doesn’t want to hear a stranger reciting Shakespeare’s Sonnets. She wants verses—biting, passionate ones—and she wants them from _me._

It’s laughable when I think about it. But I’m not laughing, and neither is she. It’s hard to, when her eyes darken and her breath catches and lust cracks like a lightning strike through every nerve in my body.

I detach from her throat, swallowing back a groan as her hips rock against mine. I’d like for her to never, ever leave my lap again if I can help it.

I lift my head, in dangerous proximity to that mouth of hers. But I want to see the look in her eyes when I comply with her request.

Quietly, slowly. “She hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs.”

Her pupils expand; her muscles melt; and I know she’s mine.

“ _Two Gentlemen of Verona?”_ she asks, and the question sounds more like the kind of breathy moan I plan to wrench from her later.

“Act three, scene one.”

I must have loosened my grip on her hair because she shifts, soft lips and warm breath heating my ear. Her tongue flicks out, tracing. I’m two seconds from apparating us back to my flat and accepting whatever fines and legal trouble I acquire for doing so in the middle of a Muggle cocktail lounge.

She arrests my plans with soft, whispered words against my ear. “I do desire that we may be better strangers.”

That one’s from _As You Like It._ I can’t remember the act, though. I can only memorize so many quotes on such short notice. Less than a week from revelation to _this._ I abandon her hair, hand on her throat instead, gently guiding her away from my ear so that I can look at her when I say, smug as fuck and loving every minute of it: “No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.”

_Then: Monday_

I obviously thought nothing of it. Why would I? Contrary to popular, slanderous opinion, I do not spend my time conjuring new and innovative ways to fuck with members of the Golden Trio. Really, I don’t.

I haven’t even seen Weasley in a year: not since he dropped out of the Auror program and therefore stopped hanging around the Ministry all day. I only see (and pointedly ignore) Potter when we cross paths in communal spaces (lifts, the Atrium, cafeteria, etcetera, etcetera). I’ll have to consider my avoidance options come World Cup season when Games and Sports has to coordinate security with the Aurors. But until such time that I am forced out of my modestly comfortable bubble scouting locations for Quidditch Pitch construction and paying my probationary penance, Potter is mostly a non-issue.

The thing with Granger, though...

Relations with the Golden Trio’s resident swot have been cordial and perfunctory for the entirety of our Ministry careers. I see her about as often as I see Potter, which is to say, rarely. We’d had zero reasons to interact until last month. But now, I spend every Monday afternoon with her, usually wondering when being in the same room with Hermione Granger stopped feeling quite so laborious.

I really, truly, didn’t mean anything by it. But she latched—of course she latched—onto my word choice and now I _have_ to (as in, an absolute moral/physical/magical/spiritual/sexual imperative) see that look on her face again.

I’d been sitting—quite innocently and professionally if I’m allowed a moment of self-assessment—and listening to Granger prattle on about Golden Snidget preservation in what has become the bane of my pathetic existence: the Cooperative Committee for Creature Conservation, Class of Concentration: Golden Snidgets (or, the CCCCCCGS. An _avada_ to the chest will do just fine, thanks). Granger’s newest project, my personal hell.

I realized several minutes into her speech on our departments’ mutual responsibilities to the little flying feather balls that I had 1) stopped listening to her entirely and 2) started fantasizing about better days when Professor Snape would put an end to her speeches with a well-aimed ad hominem attack. Unprofessional, I’m aware, but ever-so-entertaining.

With a shift in my posture and a tremendous amount of conscious effort, I forced myself to engage in her presentation just as she said something about how these idiot, endangered birds of hers frequently nested in ill-advised places, like muggle cities—something about the cost of concealment and removal. I laughed before I could stop myself.

She glared at me, naturally. Considering that the three other people in our meeting looked substantially less engaged than myself (indicated by one sleeping and the other two quietly conversing), Granger really ought to have considered it a miracle that I’d even bothered to look at her topographical maps at all. 

She huffed a breath, pursed her lips, then cracked. I realize her frustration shouldn’t amuse me as much as it does, but I really couldn’t help but smirk as she snapped, “Something funny about habitat scarcity, Malfoy?”

I snorted. I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it anyway. She looked like she wanted to murder me.

“Well, they just keep nesting in dangerous muggle high-rise buildings? Sounds to me like these birds have what we could call a plentiful lack of wit.”

I meant nothing of it. Except to lob a bit of an insult at these birds requiring my time every Monday afternoon for the last three weeks, and to rile the exceptionally easy to rile Hermione Granger.

I did not expect her mouth to drop open. Or her head to bobble. “What did you just say?”

Based on the way her tone had shifted towards suspicion, eyes widening with an odd, misplaced sort of wonder, I knew I’d probably gone too far. Just the other day she’d conceded via the interdepartmental memo announcing this particular meeting that her passion for snidgets hardly came from the heart. But as this was her assignment, she would _appreciate_ my cooperation in a committee neither of us really had much say in. The fact that I’d agreed to civility slipped my mind for a moment there.

I cleared my throat, uncrossing my arms. “Just a commentary on their sense of self-preservation. Apologies for the interruption. Carry on.”

She did carry on. But every time she looked at me for the remaining twenty-two minutes of her presentation, I couldn’t quite tell if she meant to figure me out or shoot a silent curse at me. But as I survived until the end of the meeting unscathed, I could only assume that I’d merely perplexed her.

As an act of goodwill, I thought I might try something abundantly well-mannered. Nauseatingly civil, even. Another repetition feels important: I meant nothing by it.

Granger shrank her visual aids, stuffing them into a suspiciously spacious leather satchel as the other members of our meeting made a quick exit.

I only said it to prove that I’m not _entirely_ an arsehole anymore. No longer a teenager, but something resembling an adult in my early twenties. So when I complimented Granger with a “Well said, Hermione,” I only meant the use of her given name as something conciliatory. It took great effort, truth be told. And she didn’t seem to appreciate that fact.

Not as she sputtered and blinked, forearm still shoved halfway inside her bag. She froze, staring at me with a vacant expression, as if every thought had drained out of her infuriatingly brilliant head and the only thing within her focus was _me_.

Well. I didn’t exactly know what to do with that, even if she recovered quickly. But that blink of a moment was enough to dry my mouth out; hers too, based her labored swallow before she spoke.

“Malfoy, you’re joking. There’s no way that was a coincidence.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Shakespeare. You’re quoting Shakespeare.”

“Considering I have no idea who that is, I can assure you I am not.”

“But—” she faltered, finally pulling her hand from her satchel, slinging it over her shoulder. “The first one—maybe it was an accident. Though I’m fairly certain that was _Hamlet_. But _well said, Hermione?_ That’s straight from _The Winter’s Tale.”_

“Your name is in a tale?”

“It’s a play—and I’m named after—Oh. You really don’t know.”

Granger’s uncanny ability to needle beneath my skin with condescending comments like that have, historically, driven me to say and do several unwise things. But I can hardly blame the folly of youth for the lie that came next. This fib was definitely a product of my pride.

“Of course I know who that is, Granger. I was clearly joking.”

“You were…joking?”

“Of course.”

“By quoting Shakespeare to me?”

“I believe I was insulting Golden Snidget’s intelligence with Shapesk—quotes.”

It was a subtle shift, that look I can’t get out of my head. But as Granger oscillated between _definitely not believing my poorly planned lie_ to _possibly believing it a little bit_ , her focus narrowed again, simultaneously shrinking the already cramped conference room around us.

“I love Shakespeare,” she said, somewhat breathless and painfully, endearingly earnest, like she was sharing a secret with me that I most certainly had not earned.

Worse, now that she’d shared it, I wanted to know more. I _needed_ to know more, especially if it meant Hermione Granger kept looking at me like that—like I’d unlocked some special means by which to slow her whirring brain and bring her out of the heavily strategized future she spent most of her time in preparation of. In the space of that confession, she’d slowed enough to exist in the present.

_Now: Saturday_

I concede to legal restrictions on where I can and cannot apparate when in the presence of Muggles. The Statute of Secrecy ought to be renamed The Statute of Draco Malfoy’s Impressive Fucking Willpower because I’d like to see any other wizard resist this writhing witch in his arms.

Admittedly, I should give her more credit. Most of it, really. She’s the one who slides off my lap, who tosses Muggle money onto our table, who practically yanks me to my feet. I have enough presence of mind to know that I’m still sporting quite the tent in my trousers as I follow her through several narrow and increasingly dark and winding corridors. We stop at the emergency exit that empties into the alleyway and our designated apparition point.

I pull her to me when she pauses in front of the door. I interrupt her intentions to draw her wand and temporarily dismantle the alarm, allowing for our exit. Her hands fly out, bracing herself against the metal door; her arse feels even more delectable against me than I could have imagined. My fingertips dig into her hip bones as I flatten my chest to her back, mouth on her neck, looming. Her whimper inspires me to roll my hips again.

She pushes back against me as I press into her. Her hips are centimeters from the panic bar. _Push bar to open_ , it says. _Door is alarmed,_ it also says.

I smirk. I can feel it pulling my lips away from her neck, from where her breath is coming in gasps and her pulse thunders against the surface of her skin: a reliable thudding I can taste.

Into her ear, I whisper, “Careful. The alarm.”

She shudders, and a quiet, high-pitched sound slips from her throat. My right hand wanders up from her hip, skimming the soft fabric of her silken, emerald-green dress I still can’t believe she wore for me. I barely touch her as my fingers climb her ribs like a ladder, delicate steps up, up, up.

Her resolve flags and her hips shift forward, brief contact with the panic bar before she grinds back against me. We groan together. Hot, heavy breath fogs the cool metal door. I’m far too turned on, grinding slowly against her arse, mouthing her neck, as her feeble attempts to avoid setting off an emergency alarm begin to fail.

Ascent complete, I palm her breast, savoring the way her reaction undulates through her: staccato breath, rolling spine, canted hips. She shifts her stance, feet slightly further from the door, aligned with my own as I stand between them.

With my mouth to her ear again, I trail my hand across to her other breast, dipping inside her neckline. Skin to skin. She whimpers again when I roll her nipple between my fingers.

I try another quote just as my other hand, still gripping her hips and holding her against me, begins bunching the fabric of her dress, pulling the hem higher.

“While she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary.” It’s from _Much Ado About Nothing;_ at least, I think so. I’m not sure. The quotes have all blurred together in my head, stifled by the scent of Granger’s summery perfume, something like tangerines and peaches, permeating my every thought. She responds in kind. From the same play, I’m almost certain. But we’re mixing up our roles, or maybe playing the same one. I can’t tell.

“Peace, I will stop your mouth.” Her voice quivers, shaking like her legs as I finally find the skin of her thigh.

“You want me to stop?” I ask, teeth toying the shell of her ear, one hand still teasing her nipple, the other creeping closer to her cunt. With my hand on her chest, I feel the way she heaves as she fights to speak again.

“No—God, no. _Please don’t stop.”_

I could listen to Hermione Granger beg for me to touch her every moment of every day for the rest of my life.

It takes a single swipe of my finger along her slick knickers, drenched with her desire, for her to finally buckle, hips crashing into the panic bar, alarm blaring.

But she turns to face me as we stumble through the door, soaked with a rush of warm summer air. Determination floods her as she grabs my arm, turns, and apparates us away.

_Then: Wednesday_

I found her in the employee break room on Ministry level four: her floor, not mine. Which probably means I went looking for her. Which I did. I am neither proud of that fact, nor willing to admit to it outside the compulsion of Veritaserum. But as it stands, I found her bent over a book (unsurprising) with a half-eaten sandwich and mug of tepid tea (I could tell, even from a distance, that she’d let it run cold) sprawled in an unappetizing display around her.

“Not that I’m unfamiliar with the sight of you reading a book, Granger. But that one’s quite dense, even for you.”

I gripped the back of the chair next to her, leaning over it, hovering close enough that I caught a bright, citrus scent (lemon from her tea, perhaps?) and something earthy, too (like papyrus, probably her book).

I’d told myself, several times on the lift down here, that this was meant to be a civility mission, an extension of our agreed upon niceties that would make working on the same committee not just bearable, but pleasant.

That citrus, bookish scent was anything but civil in the way it invaded my senses, staking its claim in a way that bloomed warm and sluggish and satisfied in my bloodstream. It was an act of war. An invading, surging lust. And it did absolutely nothing to help me forget that my motivations for this visit also had something to do with that wondrous face she’d worn the last time we spoke. A face I couldn’t get out of my head.

Rather than snap her book shut at my commentary, she stilled before leaning back and angling her head up at me. Her mouth did a fascinating little thing where it almost looked like she intended to say something combative. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did. But at the last second, she closed her lips around whatever she’d instinctually wanted to say and instead went with, “It’s Shakespeare’s complete works. After our conversation on Monday, I was feeling inspired to do a little reading.”

“In no world is that a _little_ reading, Granger.”

When she rolled her eyes, a small bird took flight in my chest. I did not give that bird permission to a) exist or b) do that fluttery thing or c) respond to Granger like that.

“I’m clearly not reading all of it right now. Just revisiting some favorites.”

I peered, curious bastard that I am, and read over her shoulder. In retrospect, I can’t decide if reading aloud was the best or worse impulse I’ve ever had. Probably the best, considering what came later, but pride limits my ability to admit to such things.

“Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none.”

An unfortunate thing, the way she blinked, breath catching as I spoke; it set the bird behind my ribs flapping its wings again. Harder. Steadier.

She worked her jaw before speaking, a strange hinge opening and closing as I presume she grappled for words. I might have judged her harder had I not been so lacking them myself, captivated by the look on her face.

“I’m reading _Much Ado About Nothing.”_ She swallowed, looking back at her page. A relief; her stare had started to burn me alive. She breathed a quiet laugh, the kind carried on a wisp of air and propelled almost entirely by disbelief. “Of course you’d pick _that_ line to read.”

“Of course.” I can’t say that I knew what I was agreeing to, but agreeing felt like it worked in my favor, so I did as much.

Her fingers skated over the page before she closed the book and twisted towards me again. She didn’t look directly at me, more at one of the buttons on my oxford, if I had to hazard a guess.

“You have a nice voice for Shakespeare,” she said.

I hadn’t expected that. Nor had I expected the crawling blush blooming on her chest and travelling to her cheeks. (I couldn’t exactly _help_ but look. She was sitting. I was standing. Her chest was very distractingly present in her pretty scoop neck blouse).

“I have a what?” Gripping the back of the chair helped corral my focus.

“Your voice.” She cleared her throat, still staring at the center of my chest. Could she see the hammering? The tiny bird? Had she found me out? “It has a nice tone and—well, your accent is well suited for these words.”

“Boring, overly formal words?”

“Passionate ones.” And her eyes finally snapped up. I really wished they hadn’t. I didn’t need to make eye contact with Granger when she talked about passion. Because she didn’t just talk about it, she exuded it. Even when that passion centered around a stuffy play she was reading.

And because of that, and possibly because of the bomb that went off inside my head when she looked at me with all that raw earnestness I had no right being on the receiving end of, I just opened my mouth and said the first stupid thing that came to mind.

“You like hearing my voice say passionate things, do you?”

I’d meant for that to sound mocking, a little joke—I think. Not too harsh, not enough to embarrass her, but a little jab to acknowledge the weird fucking situation around us.

It didn’t sound mocking at all. It sounded far too serious for a Ministry break room in the middle of the week. If someone told me we’d been _confunded_ just then, it would have explained a lot. It would have explained why I couldn’t take my eyes off Granger’s face. How her breathing had caught, stilled. How we teetered on the edge of something that could only go in one of two extremely divergent directions:

1) Absurdity. Insanity. Mocking. Mortification. Blackmail territory.

2) Orgasms. And lots of them. At least, I thought so. If I was reading the tension right.

Because there was no mistaking the way tentative lust had entered the conversation, sticky and humid and choking. I’m fairly certain my thoughts had leaked out of my ears, melting over the fact that I might have just accidentally-almost-flirted with Hermione Granger while she read ridiculously long literature over lukewarm tea.

Whatever liquified brain matter I had left completely evaporated when she responded.

“I do.” She swallowed as she broke eye contact, gaze once again on my shirt. “I’d like to hear more of it.” She inhaled with a tiny, shocked gasp, lifting the back of her hand to her bright pink cheek. “I—oh god. I didn’t mean—What I meant was—”

I like to pretend I did what I did next out of my interest in _not_ witnessing Granger have a panic attack in front of me (she’d started sucking in air at an alarming pace, clearly thinking option one was the only one available to her). But really, option two had _imperiused_ my nervous system and made it blindingly clear to me that something _else_ might be on the table.

I let go of the chair, trying to loosen my posture. “It’s ok, Granger. Don’t worry about it.” I cleared my throat. I needed to shake off some of the urges towards innuendo threatening to worm their way into every word.

She stilled again, looking up at me with relief-colored shock. I really should not have enjoyed the way she looked like that: eyes wide, flushed, mouth dropped open, gazing up through her lashes. At least, I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I did. I’m certain it informed the fact that the next sentence out of my idiotic, impulsive mouth was, “I could memorize some lines for you. If you—if you’d like that.”

She shifted in her chair. “I—” Words failed her. But then, improbably, she nodded.

_Now: Saturday_

Granger drops to her knees before my lungs have fully inflated in her living room. I blink, and she’s unbuckling my belt while I gather my bearings. She unbuttons my trousers, lowers the zip, and has her hands on my cock just as I thread my fingers in her dense curls.

My head drops back. A sputtering, “fuuuuuck” forces its way from my throat as she pumps me. “Fuck, Granger. I—”

I don’t actually have any words to say, just a runaway train of thoughts trying to reconcile bookish, swotty Hermione Granger with the astounding creature who’s turned my entire world upside down in a single week.

I compose myself, daring to look at her as she smiles up at me like she couldn’t be more pleased to have me in this position. Hermione Granger has no right looking this gorgeous on her knees. Not for me. Not in this pretty little dress she put on for tonight. Not in her delightfully bright perfume, in her rising flush, in her dark mascara.

I flex my fingers against her scalp. I want to see that mascara running down her face.

She leans forward, a sly smile overcoming her. She licks the head of my cock, swirls her tongue around it in a way that shoots flames through my blood. I groan when she closes her lips around me; so fucking warm and wet. She’s trying to kill me. I’ve realized this too late. I wonder at her body count. Not in a sexual, how-many-partners-has-she-had sort of way, but more in a how-many-men-has-she-murdered-with-her-mouth sort of way. Are there support groups?

I can’t focus on anything but my hand in her hair as she takes me deeper. I groan when she pulls back, sucking, before she bobs again, forehead meeting my stomach. I doubt she needs me to tell her, but the sight of my cock disappearing into her mouth propels a babbling brook’s worth of praises from me. She’s fucking perfect, and it’s imperative that she knows, lest she ever think that her brilliance is limited to books.

“Perfect, Granger. Fucking per—” I choke on my words as my cock hits the back of her throat. She makes a noise, too, stilling as she swallows around me, maintains her composure. My other hand lands in her curls. “You’re a fucking revelation, Granger. A goddamn vision with your mouth full.”

She pulls off, swirls her tongue around my head again, and does absolutely nothing about the precum stretching from my cock to her mouth. Her eyes have watered, evidence of her effort, and all the ways in which Granger refuses to give anything but her best. Even in sex, it would seem.

Much as I want to come down her throat and then spend the next hour with my mouth on her cunt, licking and sucking and fucking her with my tongue until her mascara runs to her chin and she can’t even think her own name, she has terms. I should abide by them. Next time, if I get a next time, I might try for amendments to her requests regarding extended foreplay and how casual this is meant to be.

Though it’s not as if fucking her expediently is going to be an especially grievous burden for me. No, I rather think I’m looking forward to burying my cock inside her and fucking as many high-pitched, unhinged noises from her throat as possible. That beautiful fucking throat.

She’s still on her knees. I let one of my hands fall from her hair, trailing lightly over her temple, sweeping through the tear at the corner of her eye, smudging some of her eyeliner, and descending to her throat. My fingers curl around her neck; I feel her swallow against my palm.

“Stand up,” I say, my voice a choked whisper. She hesitates only long enough for her tongue to dart out, lick her lips, and devastate me with how pink and glistening and beautiful it is. I kiss her again the moment she’s back on her feet, backing her into the nearest wall I can find, rutting against her hip.

I can’t touch enough of her;

hands on her neck

hands on her ribs

hands on her hips

hands on her arse

hands dipping beneath her dress, fingers dragging along her knickers as I bite her lower lip between my teeth.

I’ve been saving this one, waiting for this exact fucking moment.

“Come, I will have thee.” Another line from _Much Ado._ I knew it would have an impact, anticipated it, but watching it land is something else entirely.

Her spine curves, torso tensing as a shudder robs her of proper posture. She leans into me, attacking my shirt buttons. Her dress has ridden up, mostly my doing, and clings to her hips.

I kick off my shoes, shimmy my trousers and pants the rest of the way down and step out of them just as Granger opens the last button on my shirt and pushes it off my shoulders. Greedy, hot hands immediately blaze a trail across my chest, down my stomach.

She manages to shove one dress strap off her shoulder, but I slow her, stop her.

Hands on her wrists now, too.

I crowd her again, uncertain when so much space had found its way between us in the first place. I play with the loose emerald strap, finding the other, dragging it over her shoulder. But I don’t reach for the zipper; I don’t pull it all the way down. Instead, I trace the straps, fingers following the neckline toward the center of her chest.

Her skin is flushed with red, heaving as I walk my fingers across her chest. Gently, I curl them around her neckline, thumbs circling her nipples over the fabric. I can’t help myself. I lick a long line up the length of her neck as I tug the dress down just enough to expose her.

Her pitched gasp has me rutting against her stomach again. Her dress will be damp with precum and I couldn’t care less. I want her soaked in it. And I want to soak in her. With both hands, I pinch her freshly exposed nipples between thumbs and forefingers. She hisses, and inhaling that sound breathes the energy of a pepper-up into me.

I roll my hips against her, drag my cock against her silk dress, nip a trail across her jaw and towards her ear. “How did it feel, picking out the dress I’d be fucking you in, Granger?” I whisper the words, barely audible, but I know she’s heard me. Because I’ve never heard such a whining sound spill from the likes of Hermione Granger before. Nor has an extended, moaned _“yessssssssssss,”_ sounded quite so delicious, either. It’s not actually an answer, and I really don't care.

We had a bit to drink at the lounge, but she’s drunk on something else, body and tongue loose with lust. It’s a rush and a head trip and it might very well sustain every fantasy I could hope to have for the rest of my life. I roll her nipples between my fingers again, straightening her out with a jolt of sensation.

Her eyes pop open. I meet her gaze, one of my hands finding her neck again. It’s a delicate thing, long and luscious, and I love holding that brilliant head steady with my hand on her throat. My index finger finds her pulse hammering beneath her skin.

One of her hands wraps around my cock and I grunt my question, staring into her umber eyes, flecked with gold for her inextricable Gryffindorishness.

“Where do you want me to fuck you?”

She barely spares a blink for her response.

“Right here. Cast a feather-lite and lift me up.”

I almost do. Her breathy command nearly hijacks my higher thinking and moves me with the compliance of an _imperius._

“You think I’m not willing to work for it, Granger?”

I don’t let her respond, dipping to haul her up. Pinning her against the wall, both hands full of her delightful arse, I cant my cock forward into her barely covered cunt. She’s fucking drenched, knickers so slippery I glide across her with barely any friction. I’m hardly thinking, mouth latched to a patch of skin just above her left breast as her ankles hook together behind my back.

She’s not heavy, but fucking her like this is going to sear a burn into my muscles. It’ll be worth it, though, to have gravity help sit her so prettily on my cock.

“You want me to have you like this, Granger?” I ask, mouth hovering over her tits. “Wearing a silk dress and shoved against a wall in your living room? I think I’ll even leave your knickers on. You’ve fucking ruined them—”

She grips my jaw, fingers digging into my skin, lifting my face to hers. Her breath is heavy, but her tone is deadly serious. “I wonder that you will still be talking.”

“Enough with the quotes, Granger. I’m not doing this right if you can remember some dead bloke’s words.”

“Do better, then.”

I thrust forward, not quite entering her because her knickers are still there. But even with the little scrap of fabric, it’s enough that her breath catches.

Quietly, “This better?”

I rock again. Her knickers are so wet, stretching so that I can slip inside just enough to start forming my own personal religion around the feeling of her cunt enveloping the head of my cock. I forget who’s supposed to speak next, what we’re doing. All I know is that I have Hermione Granger pressed against a wall, dress shoved up, tits exposed, and sucking in air like I’ve robbed her lungs of oxygen as I barely, _just barely,_ fuck her through her knickers.

I can’t take it anymore. With a quick movement so I don’t drop her, I walk my fingers over and yank her knickers to the side. I slip into her in one long, delectable slide to the hilt. I bite down on her shoulder as she whines a shaky sound so high pitched that parts of it fades out of human hearing, nothing but air between strained vocal cords.

“Oh, fuck—”

I never want to hear another word from her that isn’t _fuck_ ever again. It worms its way behind my eardrums, burrowing into brain matter and repeating that breathy word like an incantation tied straight to my libido.

With my fingers digging into her arse, holding her steady, I rock back, dragging my cock from her as she makes wonderful, wonderful sounds. In any other context, her whimpers might sound alarming, like a wounded creature. But as I drive back into her and taste those sounds with my own lips, I know they are noises wrought by bliss.

I can’t help but agree.

Her cunt is divine. She’s dripping and blazing and already tensing and fluttering so perfectly around me. I can hardly believe that not even a week ago I was fantasizing about shutting her up in the middle of meeting with a well aimed insult. Shutting her up with my mouth and cock is a much more pleasurable alternative.

“ _Fuck,”_ she says again.

I rock in and out of her, captive to mindless sensation. I mean to say something clever. Like, _I know,_ or _that’s what I’m doing._ But all I can do is groan into her mouth as I drive into her with an urgent rhythm.

Her breath puffs across my face with every thrust. I’m going to come, and soon.

“Touch yourself, Granger.”

She doesn’t move, doesn’t respond at all outside of the lovely whining noises I earn every time my hips meet hers. She just keeps panting as a red flush crawls up her cheeks.

I squeeze her arse in both my hands in emphasis of our available limbs. “I’m holding you up, Granger. Touch yourself.”

That seems to get through to her, and one of her hands drops from my shoulder, wedging between us and drawing quick, tight circles over her clit. The sight alone nearly whites out my vision, which doesn’t even cover the way her cunt clenches. Each thrust drags that much tighter.

If the pressure around my cock is any indication, she’s close. I can’t think. My thoughts have melted entirely, dripping down my spinal column as I’m reduced to a repetition of thrusts in and out of her beautiful fucking body.

“I don’t—I don’t have any more quotes for you, Granger.”

She whimpers. I bury my face in the side of her neck, mouth open and panting and vaguely tasting the skin beneath her ear.

“Just you,” she says. It’s an incomplete thought, and I don’t know what to make of it. “Just—keep saying my name like— _oh god.”_

“Granger?” Her cunt clenches again and I breathe heavily against her ear. “Come for me, Granger. Let me feel it. Come for _me.”_

She does. Just like that. Face pinched tight as she spasms.

As she writhes.

As a tendon in her neck strains against the surface of her skin. Head thrown back as I plow into her.

She’s tight and tense and holding her breath when I finally lose control too, a stuttered grunt against her neck as I come in fits and bursts of blinding pleasure. She breathes again, a gust against my cheek as her whole body relaxes, soft and languid in my arms. I still completely, buried deep inside her and I wrangle my breathing and my pulse. I try to restart my brain.

She’s rendered me dumb with her cunt.

Minutes or hours or years pass. Me, softening inside her. Granger, breathing heavily against my ear. Until finally—

“Oh my god,” from her.

I loosen my grip and tilt my hips away, slipping from her. Her fingernails bite into the back of my neck.

“Oh my _god,”_ she says again.

“I know.”

I know a lot of things.

How amazing that just was.

How to scout an ideal location for Quidditch pitches.

How Golden Snidget habitats are shrinking.

And how we’ve agreed to one thing tonight, but I can’t possibly abide by it.

Not with this witch’s flushed, sweat-damp skin pressed against my own, limbs liquid as water. This was meant to be casual. And I’m about to make it anything but.

I press my lips against her jaw.

“Where’s the bedroom?” I whisper, and then lead her away.

_Then: Friday_

Hermione Granger appeared awkwardly at my office door on Friday afternoon, not three seconds after I’d taken a bite into my soggy, disappointment of a tomato sandwich. I’d thought something simple might be ideal for lunch, what with all the reading I’d been doing, and needed to be doing. It felt like prepping for exams again.

But what else was I meant to do after I received a perplexing owl from Granger late Wednesday evening, simultaneously apologizing for her earlier _slip in decorum_ (which was honestly more arousing to think about in those terms than anything else) while also offering a list of plays she thought I might enjoy if I had indeed been _genuine about my interest_ in familiarizing myself with this Shakespeare fellow’s work.

Sitting in my home office, reading and rereading this letter, the first bit of personal correspondence I’d ever received from Hermione Granger in my life, I couldn’t help but feel as if I’d been handed an instructional list on how best to seduce her.

Her eyes rounded, beautiful brown orbs as she stopped in the doorway, eyes fixed on the enormous book sitting open in front of me.

She knew.

I knew.

We both _knew_ what it implied.

She cleared her throat.

“I was hoping to speak with you—” she started, seemingly capable of looking at every last surface in my tiny office but me. “I sent you an owl.”

“I received it.”

She cleared her throat again. Her nerves commandeered most of the breathing room around us. “You’re on your lunch?” she asked.

“I am.”

“Me as well.”

“Remarkable, the coincidence.”

Her eyes narrowed at my snipe, finally landing on me. “I just wanted to be certain we were both—on our own time.” She stepped forward and, without another word, shut the door to my office behind her.

My forehead creased, brows shooting up in surprise, at the _forwardness_ of it all. She leaned back against the closed door, arms pinned behind her. Her breath came out unsteady, nerves still rattled, but the set of her jaw looked resolved, determined.

“Please correct me if I’m wrong—”

“—Gladly, as always—”

“—But I was hoping to discuss what I think I might have interpreted as subtext the other day.”

“Subtext.”

“Yes, meaning between the lines.”

“Between the lines.”

“Yes, saying one thing and meaning another. You were a Slytherin, Malfoy, I’m sure you’re familiar.”

“I am.”

“So. There was subtext?” she asked.

“I think I’d like for you to tell me.”

My robes weighed far too heavy on my shoulders, stifling in my suddenly oppressive office. Granger didn’t respond, not immediately. She pursed her lips together, eyes down and narrowed as if something in the carpets had offended her. She had a wary, jittery-ness about her. And then all at once, she straightened, and looked me dead in the eye.

“There was. Of a sexual nature,” she said. “If I’m incorrect, I’ll gladly reevaluate my observations, but I’ve realized not-so-recently that I need to be better about asking for what I want. What I like.”

My mouth ran dry.

“What you like—sexually? Just so we’re clear.”

“Well, I do mean more generally. But—yes, sexually, too.” She paused, and it was like watching her war with herself, refusing to drop my gaze. I might have conceded, dropped my own, if I’d had any control over my body. “I like your voice. And you’re very attractive. And I _thought_ I detected a certain subtext so—here I am.”

“Here you are.”

How many times had I repeated her now? I wasn’t sure I was capable of forming my own sentences, just latching onto the sounds in hers and parroting them back.

“What I mean to say is”—she pushed off the door, standing solidly on her own in front of my desk—“I see you’re reading Shakespeare.”

That kickstarted my vocal cords back into competence.

“I said I’d memorize some lines for you.”

She sucked in a breath. Swallowed, then spoke. “I was wondering if we might come to an agreement.” A streak of pink shot up the side of her neck, creeping towards her face.

“An—agreement?”

“Must I say it?”

“I really think you must.”

She looked a split second from huffing, but caught herself. “A sexual agreement. If you’re interested.”

I blinked, lost for a moment in an unreal version of my life wherein Hermione Granger walked into my office brandishing her sexual liberation and propositioning me over Shakespeare and a soggy sandwich.

It wasn’t until I caught her shifting her weight awkwardly between her feet that I realized I ought to actually respond to her. What other answer was there, really?

“I am interested.”

A flush of surprise tinted her relief.

“I have terms.”

“Of course you do.” I meant to smile, but my tongue kept sticking to the roof of my mouth, and my focus had been heartily distracted by my cock straining against my trousers. As a general rule, I usually tried to avoid erections at work. Granger was making that very difficult.

“I’m looking for—” she paused, worrying her bottom lip “—some passion.”

“So, I should keep memorizing, then?”

She nodded. “Yes that would be ideal. And I don’t need romance. This would be casual. No frills and hours’ long foreplay. Just—sex.”

“Just sex.” I did it again, repeated her. It was as if the unbelievable things needed repetition, echoes to confirm their origins in reality.

She took a stilted step forward, knocking her knuckles lightly on the top of my desk. Reiteration apparently bore importance to her too. “Casual, Malfoy. Just—sex.”

“Tomorrow night.”

Her brows lifted in confusion.

“Let me take you out,” I clarified.

“I’ve just said I don’t need romance.”

“It doesn’t have to be romance—can still be casual. But I think we might need a bit of a warm up. I’ve only just stopped finding you quite so irritating.” That felt like neutral ground. What had once been contentious ground.

“Alright.”

“I have my own terms.”

She smiled. “Of course you do.” The spark in her eyes crawled up my spine with a thrill.

“Wear something green for me”—I ignored her disbelieving scoff and forged on—“something you’d like to be fucked in.”

Her mouth snapped shut, mirth disintegrating. She stared at me like she couldn’t decide if I meant to be serious. My seriousness could not be overstated.

Slowly, she nodded. And part of me wondered right then if we should just forgo the pretext of waiting until tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind bending her over my desk and driving into her from behind. If she was half as worked up as I was, we wouldn’t need much time at all.

Instead, she checked her watch.

“My lunch break is over in two minutes.”

“As is mine.”

“Tomorrow,” she said with authority. “I’ll wear something green and then we’ll have sex.”

“That does appear to be the plan.”

“Good.” A concise agreement.

“Good.”

She left my office quickly, perhaps before either of us could come to our senses and take it back. The cloud of arousal didn’t lift when she’d gone, if anything, it choked me more.

I spelled my door locked and unzipped my trousers. Fisting my cock, I came quickly to images of Hermione Granger looking at me like I’d captured her complete attention, like my voice made her shudder, like she might be back in her own office with her hand slipped beneath her skirt, touching herself over her own audacity, propositioning me at work.

_Now: Sunday_

I realize it probably counts as romance, far from casual, the way I lead her to bed. The way I fold back her sheets and lay her between them. The way I pepper her jaw and neck with kisses as I whisper more nonsensical words about how bloody perfect she is, Shakespeare long forgotten. It’s only the two of us now. She’d said she wanted casual, but she’s responding beautifully to my impulses towards something else entirely. She arches against me and whines delicate, breathy sounds in her darkened bedroom.

On my knees, I encourage her to roll onto her stomach so I can explore her. I massage her neck, her shoulders. Lower, her arse and thighs where I’d held onto her for dear life. She keens and fidgets as I kneed my fingers into her flesh. I drop over her, chest to her back, mouth to her ear.

“You’ll probably bruise,” I say as I roll my knuckles and fist into the muscle in her upper thigh. “Do you want me to heal them now?”

Her breath catches, then whooshes. “Leave them.”

I have zero control over the way I groan against her neck, inordinately aroused by the idea that she wants to wear my marks on her.

I vanish her wrinkled, stained dress, and cast a _scourgify_ to freshen our sweat-dampened bodies and her tear-streaked makeup. She releases a soft sound when I thread my hands through her hair again, but this time, I only mean to gather her wild curls and tie them back. I intend to save one or both of us from suffocation in the night. _If_ I stay the night, that is.

I summon a glass from her kitchen. With an _aguamenti,_ I fill it up as I shift to lay beside her. She props herself on an elbow as she observes me with that same undivided scrutiny that trapped me almost a week ago now.

“Have some water,” I say, offering her the glass.

She drinks half and hands it back to me. “You too.”

She’s curled into my side before the glass lands on her bedside table. I have to make room for it amongst an abundance of books, knitted goods, and generally offensive knick-knackery. She deflates against me, pliant and exhausted, yawning against my ribcage.

“I think this is straying a bit away from casual,” she says, as if she knows where my thoughts are headed. I drag circles against her upper arm with my knuckles, savoring the way goosebumps erupt under my touch.

I say, “That doesn’t have to be a bad thing.” I shift, bringing my face to hers, knowing I’ll need to catalogue her reactions to what I say next. “I’m like one of your snidgets. I’ll stay the night—nesting in an ill-advised place, and you, well—and you can relocate me in the morning.”

Her stifled smile pierces a tiny dimple at the side of her mouth. She releases it on an exhale, lips suddenly touching my jaw. She speaks to the juncture beneath my chin, touch heating me, stirring me from soft tiredness with the potential of _more_ and _again_.

“I’m not sure I will be able to focus in our CCCCCCGS meetings with that image in my head.”

“I know _I_ won’t be able to. All I’ll be thinking about is how your skin tastes and those lovely little sounds—yes, like that—you make.”

Her leg shifts, up over mine; her hips pressed against the side of my thigh. Our movements are slow, sensual, _distinctly not casual,_ dare I think it.

“You memorized lines of Shakespeare.”

“You get the most debauched look on your face when I recite them to you. It was excellent incentive.”

“There was sexual subtext.”

“Yes that, too.”

She breathes deeply. “You smell nice. And this was—mutually gratifying, was it not?”

“Very much so.” I turn fully towards her, rocking my rapidly filling cock into her hips. I kiss the top of her shoulder. The side of her neck. Her temple.

“With that in mind, I see no reason why this needs to be a one time affair. Our terms could be amended.” Her words are drowsy and bossy and not even a question, just a statement of her desires, ones I very much mirror.

I tilt my hips against her again. She shifts, hikes her knee up. When we rock again, her cunt is wet and ready and positioned perfectly for me to slide right in. The bliss of it tears a groan from my throat and a whimper from hers.

I draw breath, steady myself, and whisper quietly in her ear as I fuck her slowly.

“Well said, Hermione.”

**Author's Note:**

> this work is entirely smozark's fault. not only did she force a plunny on me with shakespeare quotes, but she then very graciously sourced a huge selection of options to use! this story would not exist without her!
> 
> additionally, many thanks are owed to mrsbutlertron for her beta services and her assurances that it isn't as bad as i think it is. thanks for saving me from myself!
> 
> gubabuba is a most precious human for drawing the stunning illustration included in this fic! it has definitely broken my brain. could stare at his hand on the throat for...the rest of time. thank you my friend!!
> 
> comments, kudos, and conversation are always appreciated! i'd love to know what you think!
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](http://mightbewriting.tumblr.com/)!


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